Mr. Duffy and I are planning to go to Portland and Seattle for our honeymoon, so I was reading through a Portland travel guide today and one of the recommended things to do (for free) was "Ride the Streetcar!"

Come the f on. I like the 'free' aspect of it, that there's an area in downtown Portland where you can ride the streetcar (and I think light rail) for free, but the only streetcar I can get excited about is the one in San Francisco and that's only because you can hang out the side of it while going up and down scary hills. And it's in the Rice-A-Roni commercials. It's like a celebrity.

Portland streetcars are not celebrities.

eff that dude. if you're going to PDX, what you want is the CABLE car, not the street car. AKA the Tram. Like a gigantic ski lift gondola thing. you'll pee.

i saw the report on the news last night. this issue is sort of making people a little loopy.

where to get fair and balanced info on this?

i just read nine motherfucking pages of you idiots ranting (with a little discussion/question answering and almost no funny).

the pro-streetcar people don't realize that the people who inhabit the area that the streetcar is supposed to go have already worked out their mode of transportation - in effect making the streetcar a selling point to conventioneers. the conventioneers come to town, spend a little cash (mainly paying sales tax) but don't tip (ask anyone whose waited on a Longaberger party) and then leave. big fucking deal. locals will never be on board to shell out cash for this thing unless they benefit from it, and they have absolutely no incentive. Wes Flexner can't get to work faster on it, because he lives west of his job, not north or south; corgirl lives north or south of her job, but wants to ride her fucking bike, AND THE GODDAMN BIKE PATH HAS BEEN THERE FOR YEARS, FESTERING IN CREEPY JERKOFF GUYS AND BAD RIDING SURFACE (admittedly, it has been re-vamped; beside the point), she didn't even know about it! so much for promoting self-sufficiency City of Columbus.

i live south of my job, almost exactly the route of the street car. i could ride the streetcar to work. i don't have a car to worry about parking. i could walk to the streetcar, get on it, and be to work or class right on time, no problem. but i already have a mode of transportation. i don't care about a streetcar, because it can't take me where i can't already get to. why do we need redundancy? aside from that, we are encouraging people to DRIVE to the street car so they don't have to drive. what motherfucking kind of fucking motherfucking logic is that?

also, the streetcar will not bring magical revitalization. the streetcar will boost property value. then property owners will price out the current renters (re: Little Brothers, etc). the current renters will be screwed - either they charge 5x the door/drink price, driving out the regulars, or close up shop. the building will go vacant for a time, until a big chain that can afford a loss gobbles up the space (re: Flamingo Arcade - which got priced out, turned in to a Quirznos, which then failed and now it's a... chain restaurant).

Columbus is not Portland, or Kenosha, or Little Rock. it's Columbus. it will not follow the patterns of those other cities. Columbus has it's own pattern = Live here all your life, get indignant about shit, but figure out how to get deals on everything from locals, have kids, they do the same, etc. OR, come here for OSU, shit all over campus for four years, maybe rape a girl or get kidnapped, leave to get a job in Kenosha, because you can buy a condo at one end of a streetcar line and your shitty job is on the other - but you can also get a great deal on an Escalade which you will drive anyway.

the streetcar will get built (it's all too clear that City Council has cotton in it's ears on the matter) and someone on a bicycle will die (probably me) because of it. it will go up and down the little strip, empty (like the one in Portland) and noone will care. good job, idiots, in gobbling up the first in a long line of stupid ideas that makes the corporate cash counters' ears perk up. fuck all you people, i'm indignant about this, but it's your problem because i can get deals on everything i need from locals.

On the news the other night when they were talking about the meeting, one OSU student was quoted as saying, "I think it'll be good. OSU students sometimes feel disconnected from downtown, so it'll be good to have another way to get there." (Or something to this effect)

What's wrong with the bus? Can someone please just explain what's wrong with the bus? Especially along that particular strip, from OSU to downtown? It's such a short ride.

But couldn't they eliminate this problem by making one bus look old-timey, or plush, or whatever it is students and conventioneers want? That way you know you're getting on the proper bus that could run exactly the same route as the streetcars.

C'mon, students ride CABS around campus everyday, and they are adults. COTA just needs a more user friendly website and a little outreach.